The present invention relates to data processing systems, and more specifically to a system and a method for controlling the dissemination of contact addresses in order to minimize Spam.
The Internet is growing in popularity, and more and more people (“Senders”) are conducting business over the Internet, advertising their products and services by generating and sending electronic mailings. These electronic mail (e-mail) are usually unsolicited and regarded as nuisances by the recipients. Because this type of mail is so undesirable, it has acquired a special name in the Internet community: Spam.
Therefore, it is highly desirable to have a system where recipients of e-mail can exert control over the use of one's e-mail address by second and third parties, so as to minimize the exposure of e-mail address to unwanted Spam.
Of a particular importance is the issue of providing one's e-mail address to Web sites during a sign-up or ordering process. Many times, rogue web owners, abuse the trust of such a user and either sell said e-mail address to third parties or bombard the user with unsolicited e-mails themselves.
It is very desirable therefore, to have a system that would facilitate an easy procedure where one could easily control the use of one's e-mail after such an e-mail address is given out.
There exists an anti-Spam e-mail service (www.spamex.com) which lets a user generate multiple alias e-mail addresses representing one real e-mail box. Said alias e-mails are then provided to would be senders. E-mails sent by said senders to said alias e-mail addresses are received by the service and forwarded to the real e-mail box. A recipient may assign different e-mail addresses to would be senders and thus be able to differentiate among them based on the alias address to which they were sent. Any unwarranted use of the alias e-mail can be blocked as it is associated with a specific sender. However, said service requires that a user explicitly specifies such alias addresses for the forwarding service to recognize them. Otherwise, e-mails directed to alias e-mail addresses which are not defined, are held in storage—wasting dear resources, until said user manually approves or rejects them.
Yet, another system (U.S. Pat. No. 6,266,692) requires that a sender includes a secret passkey as part of the sent e-mail header, for it to be authorized by a receiving program. The problem with this system is that a sender has no standard way for handling these pass-codes in a typical e-mail program like Outlook or others.
Therefore, it is highly desirable to have a system which can always block unwanted mail, without compromising system resources. It is also highly desirable to have a system that requires no modifications to the sender's client e-mail software and that prevents unauthorized transfer of e-mail addresses to third parties.
Moreover, it is clear that the integration of e-mail address creation with automated form filling software, alleviates a problem users encounter today when they need to fill up many sign-up forms on the Web, each requiring said user to provide e-mail address. Similar advantage is recognized when address creation software is integrated with e-mail sending programs.